McGill University
Public university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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McGill University is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,[11] the university bears the name of James McGill, a Scottish merchant whose bequest in 1813 established the University of McGill College. In 1885, the name was officially changed to McGill University. The university has an enrolment of more than 39,000 students.
Latin: Universitas McGill | |
Former name | McGill College or University of McGill College (1821–1885) |
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Motto |
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Motto in English |
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Type | Public research university |
Established | March 31, 1821; 202 years ago (1821-03-31)[2] |
Founder | James McGill |
Academic affiliation | AAU, ACU, AUCC, AUF, ATS, CARL, CBIE, BCI, CUSID, GULF, UArctic, UNAI, U15, URA |
Endowment | CA$2.039 billion[3] |
Budget | CA$1.555 billion[4] |
Chair | Maryse Bertrand |
Chancellor | John McCall MacBain |
President | H. Deep Saini[5] |
Visitor | Mary Simon (as Governor General of Canada) |
Academic staff | 3,476 (staff) 1,747 tenure track, 1,667 non-tenure track (faculty)[6] |
Administrative staff | 4,327[7] |
Students | 39,267 (2022)[8] |
Undergraduates | 26,765 (2022)[8] |
Postgraduates | 10,411 (2022)[8] |
Other students | 2,091 (2022)[8] |
Location | , Canada 45°30′15″N 73°34′29″W |
Campus |
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Language | English |
Newspapers | The McGill Daily The Tribune |
Colours | Red[10] White |
Nickname | McGill Redbirds and Martlets |
Sporting affiliations | |
Mascot | Marty the Martlet |
Website | www |
McGill's main campus is on the slope of Mount Royal in downtown Montreal in the borough of Ville-Marie, with a second campus situated in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of the main campus on Montreal Island. The university is one of two members of the Association of American Universities located outside the United States,[12] alongside the University of Toronto, and is the only Canadian member of the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF) within the World Economic Forum.[13] The university offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study. Most students are enrolled in the six largest faculties: Arts, Science, Medicine, Education, Engineering, and Management.[14]
McGill alumni, faculty, and affiliates include 12 Nobel laureates[15] and 147 Rhodes Scholars,[16] as well as 159 Loran Scholars,[17] 18 billionaires,[note 1] the current prime minister and two former prime ministers of Canada, two Governors General of Canada, and 15 justices of the Supreme Court of Canada.[note 2] McGill alumni also include 9 Academy Award winners,[note 3] 13 Grammy Award winners,[note 4] 13 Emmy Award winners,[note 5] four Pulitzer Prize winners,[note 6] and 121 Olympians with over 35 Olympic medals.[20]
Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning
The Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning (RIAL) was created in 1801 under an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada (41 George III Chapter 17), An Act for the establishment of Free Schools and the Advancement of Learning in this Province.[21] The RIAL was initially authorized to operate two new Royal Grammar Schools, in Quebec City and in Montreal. This was a turning point for public education in Lower Canada as the schools were created by legislation, which showed the government's willingness to support the costs of education and even the salary of a schoolmaster. This was an important first step in the creation of non-denominational schools. When James McGill died in 1813, his bequest was administered by the RIAL.
In 1846 the Royal Grammar School in Quebec City closed, and the one in Montreal merged with the High School of Montreal. By the mid-19th century, the RIAL had lost control of the other eighty-two grammar schools it had administered.[22] However, in 1853 it took over the High School of Montreal from the school's board of directors and continued to operate it until 1870.[23][24] Thereafter, its sole remaining purpose was to administer the McGill bequest on behalf of the private college. The RIAL continues to exist today; it is the corporate identity that runs the university and its various constituent bodies, including the former Macdonald College (now Macdonald Campus), the Montreal Neurological Institute, and the Royal Victoria College (the former women's college turned residence). Since the revised Royal Charter of 1852, the trustees of the RIAL are the board of governors of McGill University.[11]
McGill College
James McGill was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 6, 1744. He was a successful merchant in Quebec, having matriculated into the University of Glasgow in 1756.[25][26] Soon afterwards, McGill left for North America to explore the business opportunities there, especially in the fur trade. Between 1811 and 1813,[27] he drew up a will leaving his "Burnside estate", a 19-hectare (47-acre) tract of rural land and 10,000 pounds to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning.[28][29][30]
As a condition of the bequest, the land and funds had to be used for the establishment of a "University or College, for the purposes of Education and the Advancement of Learning in the said Province."[2] The will specified a private, constituent college[11] bearing his name would have to be established within ten years of his death; otherwise, the bequest would revert to the heirs of his wife.[31]
On March 31, 1821, after protracted legal battles with the Desrivières family (the heirs of his wife), McGill College received a royal charter from King George IV. The charter provided the college should be deemed and taken as a university, with the power of conferring degrees.[2] The third Lord Bishop of Quebec, The Right Reverend Dr. George Mountain, (DCL, Oxford) was appointed the first principal of McGill College and a professor of divinity. He is also responsible for the creation of Bishop's University in 1843 and Bishop's College School in 1836 in the Eastern Townships.[32]
University development
Campus expansions
Although McGill College received its Royal Charter in 1821, it was inactive until 1829 when the Montreal Medical Institution, which had been founded in 1823, became the college's first academic unit and Canada's first medical school. The Faculty of Medicine granted its first degree, a Doctorate of Medicine and Surgery, in 1833; this was also the first medical degree to be awarded in Canada.[33]
The Faculty of Medicine remained the school's only functioning faculty until 1843 when the Faculty of Arts commenced teaching in the newly constructed Arts Building and East Wing (Dawson Hall).[34]
The Faculty of Law was founded in 1848 and is also the oldest of its kind in the nation. In 1896, the McGill School of Architecture was the second architecture school to be established in Canada, six years after the University of Toronto in 1890.[35] Sir John William Dawson, McGill's principal from 1855 to 1893, is often credited with transforming the school into a modern university.[36]
William Spier designed the addition of the West Wing of the Arts Building for William Molson, 1861.[37] Alexander Francis Dunlop designed major alterations to the East Wing of McGill College (now called the Arts Building, McGill University) for Prof. Bovey and the Science Dept., 1888.[38] George Allan Ross designed the Pathology Building, 1922–23; the Neurological Institute, 1933; Neurological Institute addition 1938 at McGill University.[39] Jean Julien Perrault (architect) designed the McTavish Street residence for Charles E. Gravel, which is now called David Thompson House (1934).[40]
Women's education
Women's education at McGill began in 1884 when Donald Smith (later the Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal), began funding separate lectures for women, given by university staff members. The first degrees granted to women at McGill were conferred in 1888.[41] In 1899, the Royal Victoria College (RVC) opened as a residential college for women at McGill with Hilda D. Oakeley as the head. Until the 1970s, all female undergraduate students, known as "Donaldas," were considered to be members of RVC.[42] Beginning in the autumn of 2010, the newer Tower section of Royal Victoria College became a mixed gender dormitory, whereas the older West Wing remains strictly for women. Both the Tower and the West Wing of Royal Victoria College form part of the university's residence system.[43]
McGill in the Great War
Many students and alumni enlisted in the first wave of patriotic fervour that swept the nation in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I, but in the spring of 1915—after the first wave of heavy Canadian casualties at Ypres—Hamilton Gault, the founder of the Canadian regiment and a wealthy Montreal businessman, was faced with a desperate shortage of troops. When he reached out to his friends at home for support, over two hundred were commissioned from the ranks, and many more would serve as soldiers throughout the war. On their return to Canada after the war, Major George McDonald and Major George Currie formed the accounting firm McDonald Currie, which later became one of the founders of Price Waterhouse Coopers.[44] Captain Percival Molson was killed in action in July 1917. Percival Molson Memorial Stadium at McGill is named in his honour.
The War Memorial Hall (more generally known as Memorial Hall) is a landmark building on the campus of McGill University. At the dedication ceremony, the Governor General of Canada (Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis) laid the cornerstone. Dedicated on October 6, 1946, the Memorial Hall and adjoining Memorial Pool honour students who had enlisted and died in the First World War, and in the Second World War. In Memorial Hall, there are two Stained Glass Regimental badges, World War I and World War II Memorial Windows by Charles William Kelsey c. 1950/1.[45]
A war memorial window (1950) by Charles William Kelsey in the McGill War Memorial Hall depicts the figure of St. Michael and the badges of the Navy, Army and the Air Force. A Great War memorial window featuring Saint George and a slain dragon at the entrance to the Blackader-Lauterman Library of Architecture and Art is dedicated to the memory of 23 members of the McGill chapter of Delta Upsilon who gave their lives in the Great War.[46]
There is a memorial archway at Macdonald Campus, two additional floors added to the existing Sir Arthur Currie gymnasium, a hockey rink and funding for an annual Memorial Assembly. A Book of Remembrance on a marble table contains the names of those lost in both World Wars. On November 11, 2012, the McGill Remembers website launched; the University War Records Office collected documents between 1940 and 1946 related to McGill students, staff and faculty in the Second World War.[47]
Founder of universities and colleges
McGill was instrumental in founding several major universities and colleges. It established the first post-secondary institutions in British Columbia to provide degree programs to the growing cities of Vancouver and Victoria. It chartered Victoria College in 1903 as an affiliated junior college of McGill, offering first and second-year courses in arts and science, until it became today's University of Victoria. British Columbia's first university was incorporated in Vancouver in 1908 as the McGill University College of British Columbia. The private institution granted McGill degrees until it became the independent University of British Columbia in 1915.[48]
Dawson College began in 1945 as a satellite campus of McGill to absorb the anticipated influx of students after World War II. Many students in their first three years in the Faculty of Engineering took courses at Dawson College to relieve the McGill campus for the later two years for their degree course. Dawson eventually became independent of McGill and evolved into the first English CEGEP in Quebec. Another CEGEP, John Abbott College, was established in 1971 at the campus of McGill's Macdonald College.[49]
Both founders of the University of Alberta, Premier Alexander Cameron Rutherford of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, were also McGill alumni. In addition, McGill alumni and professors, Sir William Osler and Howard Atwood Kelly, were among the four founders and early faculty members of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.[50] Osler eventually became the first Physician-in-Chief of the new Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, US in 1889. He led the creation of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1893.[51] Other McGill alumni founded the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry in the 1880s.[52]
Modern history
McGill University, alongside other universities like the Université de Montréal and the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, had longstanding quotas in place from 1920 to the late 1960s on the number of Jews admitted to the respective universities.[53][54][55] The quota limited the Jewish student population in medicine and law to at most 10 per cent.[56]
By 1961, McGill had an enrolment of 8,507 students and 925 graduate students.[57] Since the 1960s McGill has experienced government funding curtailment.[58] According to a 2016 report, McGill had a $1.3 billion deferred maintenance bill.[59] The report also identified that 73 per cent of the university's buildings were in poor or very poor shape.[60]
McGill University was the subject of controversy when in January 2023, McGill University's Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) hosted the event, titled Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate In the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T. It was led by McGill alumnus Robert Wintemute. Transgender activist groups stormed the talk at McGill led by a speaker associated with a group they claimed was "notoriously transphobic and trans-exclusionary." The talk was cancelled shortly after it started.[61]
Downtown campus
McGill's main campus is situated in downtown Montreal at the foot of Mount Royal.[62] Most of its buildings are in a park-like campus (also known as the Lower Campus) north of Sherbrooke Street and south of Pine Avenue between Peel and Aylmer streets. The campus also extends west of Peel Street (also known as Upper Campus) for several blocks, starting north of Doctor Penfield; the campus also extends east of University Street, starting north of Pine Avenue, an area that includes McGill's Percival Molson Memorial Stadium and the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital. The community immediately east of University Street and south of Pine Avenue is known as Milton-Park, where a large number of students reside. The campus is near the Peel and McGill Metro stations. A major downtown boulevard, McGill College Avenue, leads up to the Roddick Gates, the university's formal entrance. Many of the major university buildings were constructed using local grey limestone, which serves as a unifying element.[63] A number of these buildings are connected by indoor tunnels.[64]
The university's first classes were held in at Burnside Place, James McGill's country home.[30][65] Burnside Place remained the sole educational facility until the 1840s, when the school began construction on its first buildings: the central and east wings of the Arts Building.[66] The rest of the campus was essentially a cow pasture, a situation similar to the few other Canadian universities and early American colleges of the age.[67]
The university's athletic facilities, including Molson Stadium, are on Mount Royal, near the residence halls and the Montreal Neurological Institute. The Gymnasium is named in honour of General Sir Arthur William Currie.[68]
Residence system
McGill's residence system comprises 16 properties providing dormitories, apartments, and hotel-style housing to approximately 3,100 undergraduate students and some graduate students from the downtown and Macdonald campuses.[69][70] With the exception of students returning as "floor fellows," few McGill students live in residence (known colloquially as "rez") after their first year of undergraduate study, even if they are not from the Montreal area. Most second-year students transition to off-campus apartment housing. Many students settle in the Milton-Park neighbourhood, sometimes called the "McGill Ghetto,"[71] which is the neighbourhood directly to the east of the downtown campus. Students have also moved to areas such as Mile End, The Plateau, and even as far as Verdun because of rising rent prices.[72]
Many first-year students live in the Upper Residence ("Upper Rez"),[73] which consists of the 1960s-style dormitories McConnell Hall, Molson Hall, and Gardner Hall and are located on the slope of Mount Royal alongside historic Douglas Hall, another student residence.[74]
Royal Victoria College opened as a residential college for women in 1899, but its Tower section became mixed gender in September 2010 while its West Wing remains strictly for women.[43] The college's original building was designed by Bruce Price and its extension was designed by Percy Erskine Nobbs and George Taylor Hyde.[75] A statue of Queen Victoria by her daughter Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, stands in front of the building.[76]
Macdonald campus
A second campus, the Macdonald Campus, in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue houses the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Science, the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, the Institute of Parasitology, and the McGill School of Environment. As of fall 2020, despite a decrease in enrolment from the previous year's 1,962 students, the campus has a total of 1,892 actively enrolled students, including those studying part-time and full-time, across all available programs. Of the total, 1,212 students are pursuing an undergraduate degree, 374 are pursuing a Masters-level degree, and 248 are pursuing a Doctoral-level degree, respectively. The gender percentage is 70.7 per cent female and 29.3 per cent male. There is a high international student presence, where over 1 in 5 students studying are from outside Canada. Students attending Macdonald campus often nickname the campus as “Mac” campus. Its location near the St. Lawrence river makes the campus significantly quieter and nature dense than the Downtown Montreal campus. The Morgan Arboretum and the J. S. Marshall Radar Observatory are nearby.
The Morgan Arboretum was created in 1945. It is a 2.5-square-kilometre (0.965 sq mi) forested reserve with the aim of 'teaching, and public education'. Its mandated goals are to continue research related to maintaining the health of the Arboretum plantations and woodlands, to develop new programs related to selecting species adapted to developing environmental conditions and to develop silvicultural practices that preserve and enhance biological diversity in both natural stands and plantations.[77]
Outaouais campus
In 2019, McGill announced the construction of a new campus for its Faculty of Medicine in Gatineau, Quebec, which will allow students from the Outaouais region to complete their undergraduate medical education locally and in French. Medical students began using the new facility in August 2020.[78] The new facility is located above the emergency room at Gatineau Hospital, part of the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux (CISSS) de l'Outaouais, in addition to new offices for the associated Family Medicine Unit for residency training.[78] Although the preparatory year for students entering the undergraduate medical education program from CEGEP was initially planned to be offered solely at the McGill downtown campus in Montreal,[78][79] collaboration with the Université du Québec en Outaouais made it possible to offer the program entirely in Gatineau.[80]
McGill University Health Centre redevelopment plan
In 2006, the Quebec government initiated a $1.6 billion LEED redevelopment project for the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). The project will expand facilities to two separate campuses[81] and consolidate the various hospitals of the MUHC on the site of an old CP rail yard adjacent to the Vendôme Metro station. This site, known as Glen Yards, comprises 170,000 square metres (1,800,000 sq ft) and spans portions of Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood and the city of Westmount.[82]
The Glen Yards project has been controversial due to local opposition to the project, environmental issues, and the project's cost.[83]
Sustainability
In 2007, McGill premiered its Office of Sustainability and added a second full-time position in this area, the Director of Sustainability in addition to the Sustainability Officer.[84] Recent efforts in implementing its sustainable development plan include the new Life Sciences Centre which was built with LEED-Silver certification and a green roof, as well as an increase in parking rates in January 2008 to fund other sustainability projects.[84] Other student projects include The Flat: Bike Collective, which promotes alternative transportation, and the Farmer's Market, which occurs during the fall harvest.[85]
McGill Community for Lifelong Learning
Founded in 1989, the McGill Community for Lifelong Learning (MCLL) is an educational community for senior learners housed in the McGill School of Continuing Studies. The program was founded by Fiona Clark, then-assistant director of continuing studies at McGill, and drew inspiration from horizontal peer-led programs, including the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement.[86] Its innovative educational model[87] is notably different from an instructor-led approach, and instead sees seniors exploring educational interest as either study group moderators, or participants. A core team of volunteer seniors assists with all aspects of the organization's mandate with the support of McGill staff and facilities. The program brings together hundreds of senior members yearly and has acted as a springboard for numerous senior-led initiatives such as social events, educational symposiums, and cultural festivals, including an internationally recognized yearly Bloomsday event on the life and work of author James Joyce.[88]
Other facilities
McGill's Bellairs Research Institute, in Saint James, Barbados 13°10′N 59°35′W, is Canada's only teaching and research facility in the tropics.[89] The institute has been in use for over 50 years. The university also operates the McGill Arctic Research Station on Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, and a Subarctic Research Station in Schefferville, Quebec.
McGill's Gault Nature Reserve (45°32′N 73°10′W) spans over 10 square kilometres (3.9 sq mi) of forest land, the largest remaining remnant of the primeval forests of the St. Lawrence River Valley.[90] The first scientific studies at the site occurred in 1859. The site has been the site of extensive research activities: "Today there are over 400 scientific articles, 100 graduate theses, more than 50 government reports and about 30 book chapters based on research at Mont St. Hilaire."[91]
In addition to the McGill University Health Centre, McGill has been directly partnered with many teaching hospitals for decades and has a history of collaborating with many hospitals in Montreal. These cooperations allow the university to graduate over 1,000 students in health care each year.[92] McGill's contract-affiliated teaching hospitals include the Montreal Children's Hospital, the Montreal General Hospital, the Montreal Neurological Hospital, the Montreal Chest Institute and the Royal Victoria Hospital which are all now part of the McGill University Health Centre. Other hospitals health care students may use include the Jewish General Hospital, the Douglas Hospital, St. Mary's Hospital Centre, Lachine Hospital, LaSalle Hospital, Lakeshore General Hospital, as well as health care facilities part of the Centre intégré de santé et services sociaux de l'Outaouais.[93]
Structure
The university's academic units are organized into 11 main Faculties and 13 Schools.[94] These include the School of Architecture, the School of Computer Science, the School of Information Studies, the School of Human Nutrition, the Bensadoun School of Retail Management, the Max Bell School of Public Policy, the School of Physical & Occupational Therapy, the Ingram School of Nursing, the School of Social Work, the School of Urban Planning, and the Bieler School of Environment. They also include the Institute of Islamic Studies (established in 1952), which offers graduate courses leading to the M.A. and PhD degrees.
The Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies[95] (GPS) oversees the admission and registration of graduate students (both master's and PhD).
University identity and culture
The McGill coat of arms is derived from an armorial device assumed during his lifetime by the founder of the University, James McGill. It was designed in 1906 by Percy Nobbs, three years into his term as director of the University's School of Architecture.[96] The University's patent of arms was subsequently granted by the Garter King at Arms in 1922, registered in 1956 with Lord Lyon King of Arms in Edinburgh, and in 1992 with the Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada. In heraldic terms, the coat of arms is described as follows: "Argent three Martlets Gules, on a chief dancette of the second, an open book proper garnished or bearing the legend In Domino Confido in letters Sable between two crowns of the first. Motto: Grandescunt Aucta Labore." The coat of arms consists of two parts, the shield and the scroll. The university publishes a guide to the use of the university's arms and motto.[97]
The university's symbol is the martlet, stemming from the presence of the mythical bird on the official arms of the university. The university's official colour is scarlet, which figures prominently in the academic dress of McGill University. McGill's motto is Grandescunt Aucta Labore, Latin for "By work, all things increase and grow" (literally, "Things grown great increase by work," that is, things that grow to be great do so by means of work). The official school song is entitled "Hail, Alma Mater."[98]
Exchange and study abroad
McGill maintains ties with more than 160 partner universities where students can study abroad for either one or two semesters.[99] Each year, McGill hosts around 500 incoming exchange students from over 32 countries. The university offers a multitude of activities and events to integrate the students into the university's community and introduce them to the North American academic culture. McGill is the home to more than 10,000 foreign students who make up of more than 27 per cent of the student population.[100]
Finances
The McGill endowment provides approximately 10 per cent of the school's annual operating revenues.[101] McGill's endowment rests within the top 10 per cent of all North American post-secondary institutions' endowments.[102] As of 2022, the endowment is valued at $2.039 billion,[103] the third-largest endowment among Canadian universities, and remains one of the largest endowments on a per-student basis.[104]
McGill launched the Campaign McGill campaign in October 2007,[105] with the goal of raising over $750 million for the purpose of further "attracting and retaining top talent in Quebec, to increase access to quality education and to further enhance McGill's ability to address critical global problems."[106] The largest goal of any Canadian university fundraising campaign at the time,[106][107] the campaign was officially closed on June 18, 2013, having raised more than $1 billion.[108][109] Campaign McGill has since been surpassed by larger fundraising campaigns, such as the University of British Columbia's $3 billion FORWARD campaign and the University of Toronto's $4 billion Defy Gravity campaign.[110][111] In 2019, McGill launched Made By McGill, a new $2 billion fundraising campaign.[112]
In 2019, McGill received a $200 million donation to fund the creation of the McCall MacBain Scholarships programme, the then-largest single philanthropic gift to a Canadian university, until it was surpassed in 2020 by a $250 million donation by James and Louise Temerty to the University of Toronto.[113][114]